2:1  FOR I want you to know how great is my solicitude for you [how severe an inward struggle I am engaged in for you] and for those [believers] at Laodicea, and for all who [like yourselves] have never seen my face {and} known me personally.

2:2  [For my concern is] that their hearts may be braced (comforted, cheered, and encouraged) as they are knit together in love, that they may come to have all the abounding wealth {and} blessings of assured conviction of understanding, and that they may become progressively more intimately acquainted with {and} may know more definitely {and} accurately {and} thoroughly that mystic secret of God, [which is] Christ (the Anointed One).

2:3  In Him all the treasures of [divine] wisdom (comprehensive insight into the ways and purposes of God) and [all the riches of spiritual] knowledge {and} enlightenment are stored up {and} lie hidden.

2:4  I say this in order that no one may mislead {and} delude you by plausible {and} persuasive {and} attractive arguments {and} beguiling speech.

2:5  For though I am away from you in body, yet I am with you in spirit, delighted at the sight of your [standing shoulder to shoulder in such] orderly array and the firmness {and} the solid front {and} steadfastness of your faith in Christ [that leaning of the entire human personality on Him in absolute trust and confidence in His power, wisdom, and goodness].

2:6  As you have therefore received Christ, [even] Jesus the Lord, [so] walk (regulate your lives and conduct yourselves) in union with {and} conformity to Him.

2:7  Have the roots [of your being] firmly {and} deeply planted [in Him, fixed and founded in Him], being continually built up in Him, becoming increasingly more confirmed {and} established in the faith, just as you were taught, and abounding {and} overflowing in it with thanksgiving.

2:8  See to it that no one carries you off as spoil {or} makes you yourselves captive by his so-called philosophy {and} intellectualism and vain deceit (idle fancies and plain nonsense), following human tradition (men's ideas of the material rather than the spiritual world), just crude notions following the rudimentary {and} elemental teachings of the universe and disregarding [the teachings of] Christ (the Messiah).

2:9  For in Him the whole fullness of Deity (the Godhead) continues to dwell in bodily form [giving complete expression of the divine nature].

2:10  And you are in Him, made full {and} having come to fullness of life [in Christ you too are filled with the Godhead--Father, Son and Holy Spirit--and reach full spiritual stature]. And He is the Head of all rule and authority [of every angelic principality and power].

2:11  In Him also you were circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, but in a [spiritual] circumcision [performed by] Christ by stripping off the body of the flesh (the whole corrupt, carnal nature with its passions and lusts).

2:12  [Thus you were circumcised when] you were buried with Him in [your] baptism, in which you were also raised with Him [to a new life] through [your] faith in the working of God [as displayed] when He raised Him up from the dead.

2:13  And you who were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh (your sensuality, your sinful carnal nature), [God] brought to life together with [Christ], having [freely] forgiven us all our transgressions,

2:14  Having cancelled {and} blotted out {and} wiped away the handwriting of the note (bond) with its legal decrees {and} demands which was in force {and} stood against us (hostile to us). This [note with its regulations, decrees, and demands] He set aside {and} cleared completely out of our way by nailing it to [His] cross.

2:15  [God] disarmed the principalities and powers that were ranged against us and made a bold display {and} public example of them, in triumphing over them in Him {and} in it [the cross].

2:16  Therefore let no one sit in judgment on you in matters of food and drink, or with regard to a feast day or a New Moon or a Sabbath.

2:17  Such [things] are only the shadow of things that are to come, {and} they have only a symbolic value. But the reality (the substance, the solid fact of what is foreshadowed, the body of it) belongs to Christ.

2:18  Let no one defraud you by acting as an umpire {and} declaring you unworthy {and} disqualifying you for the prize, insisting on self-abasement and worship of angels, taking his stand on visions [he claims] he has seen, vainly puffed up by his sensuous notions {and} inflated by his unspiritual thoughts {and} fleshly conceit,

2:19  And not holding fast to the Head, from Whom the entire body, supplied and knit together by means of its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.

2:20  If then you have died with Christ to material ways of looking at things {and} have escaped from the world's crude {and} elemental notions {and} teachings of externalism, why do you live as if you still belong to the world? [Why do you submit to rules {and} regulations?--such as]

2:21  Do not handle [this], Do not taste [that], Do not even touch [them],

2:22  Referring to things all of which perish with being used. To do this is to follow human precepts and doctrines.

2:23  Such [practices] have indeed the outward appearance [that popularly passes] for wisdom, in promoting self-imposed rigor of devotion {and} delight in self-humiliation {and} severity of discipline of the body, but they are of no value in checking the indulgence of the flesh (the lower nature). [Instead, they do not honor God but serve only to indulge the flesh.]